War has always been, and most likely always will be, a controversial subject. There are those like Rupert Brooke in his poem, “The Soldier,” who choose to overlook the violent details and gruesome deaths that come along with war to instead focus their attention on the more glamorous bigger picture where an individual can do an honorable service for the well-being of their country. Contrastingly, others like Wilfred Owen in his poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” are unable to look past the overwhelming violence and danger soldiers face during wartime and are against those who try to glamourize the reality of war. A war like World War I, which both poems are based upon, incites additional controversy because the soldiers were drafted rather than given the decision to enlist on their own free will and the war was fought on a global scale. Rupert Brooke’s “The Soldier” and Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” offer two opposing outlooks on war.

Rupert Brooke’s “The Soldier” highlights the positive side of war with a perspective that is patriotic and promotes involvement in war. The speaker of the poem views war as a necessary evil to protect his country that he is readily willing to die for. While he recognizes the possibility of death in the first line, he never addresses the gore and violence that play such a large part in war, especially in World War I where trench warfare made its debut. Rupert Brooke avoids these topics because he wants to be patriotic by writing a poem that encourages men to fight for their country rather than scare them away from the war effort. For this reason, he writes about the “laughter, learnt of friends, and gentleness” that can be found among men during war (Brooke line 13). Unfortunately, this is an unrealistically optimistic description of wartime where soldiers do die often. The speaker regards a soldier losing his life as “a pulse in the eternal mind” where they are dying for a greater good and the well-being of their country (Brooke 10). Once dead, the speaker believes the soldiers will have “hearts at peace, under an English heaven” because they have done an honorable deed by serving their country and deserve to find peace and happiness in the afterlife. “The Soldier” focuses on only the aspects of war that would encourage men to enlist themselves, but does not reveal the true reality of wartime.

Wilfred Owen focuses on the negative aspects of war in his poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” that could be seen as unpatriotic because it would certainly not inspire anyone to enlist themselves in the war. In his poem, Owen refers only about the intense violence, gore, and death that comes along with war. He writes about soldiers that are “guttering, choking, drowning” in gas (Owen line 16) and “men [that] marched asleep” (Owen 5) because they are so exhausted. Owen hardly describes a war front that is prepared and where spirits are high like war recruitment posters do. “Dulce et Decorum Est” could be considered unpatriotic because it creates such a bleak image of war that could deter men from wanting to enlist. Although, Owen is not necessarily against the war effort, but rather opposed to the glamourization of war. The title of the poem is the beginning of the phrase “Dulce et decorum est,Pro patria mori” (Owen 27-28) which translates from Latin as “It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country.” However, Owen disagrees so he ironically names the poem using only the first part of the phrase and refers to it in its entirety as “The old Lie” (Owen 27). While Owen is not necessarily against the war effort, he is against those who convince men to enlist by sharing an idealistic image of war rather than revealing its whole truth and gruesome reality.

While Brooke and Owen’s poems feature outlooks that are two contrasting extremes, the truth of war likely lies somewhere in between the two perspectives. Brooke’s poem that favorably describes war is much shorter than Owen’s poem that criticizes it which could suggest that there are significantly more negative things to be said about war than positive. Both poems refer to dreams, but with opposing tones. In “The Soldier,” Brooke describes what his country has given to its people “dreams as happy as her day” (Brooke 12) and a life that is so incredible that it could be the subject of a dream and is worth dying for. Contrastingly, the speaker of “Dulce et Decorum Est” states that “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering choking, drowning.” (Owen 15-16) and describes his dreams as “smothering” (Owen 17) because they are all about traumatic moments from the war. The dreams in “Dulce et Decorum Est” are likely a symptom of the speaker’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder which is common among soldiers especially in a war as violent as World War I. Because soldiers in the war were suffering so greatly, Owen believed that men enlisting deserved to know what they were signing up for rather than let them believe and expect war to be similar to the glamourized lie told to them by recruitment posters and poets like Rupert Brooke. Wilfred Owen did not write “Dolce et Decorum Est” with the goal of being unpatriotic, but rather with the desire to educate men by telling of the horrors they will have to face. In World War I, soldiers “endured some of the most brutal forms of warfare ever known” (Wilcox) so men deserved to know the violence and danger they would be going up against before enlisting and leaving their families.

While there is a lot of violence in war, it is not solely death and gore or solely fraternity and prepared men honorably serving their country. The truth of the war is likely that there is some “laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,” (Brooke 13) but also a lot of “vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues” (Owen 24) and violence that traumatizes the soldiers and gives many Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Soldiers deserve to know the physical and mental risks of war before they are forced to fight in it, but the government would only release positive propaganda because they wanted to keep morale high and persuade people to support the war. Wars are better fought when the whole country is in unity supporting war, but not if that unity comes at the price of lying to the men who are fighting for the country. Regardless of one’s perspective on war, everyone deserves to have all the information in order to make their own decisions and form their own opinions.
